Heritage systems used throughout the aerospace and defense communities may be based on point-to-point, physically co-located, computing architectures. That is, all of the computing hardware required to process information over a computing network may be located within each respective platform, comprising a physically bounded entity in operational space, such as a plane, a boat, a vehicle, a satellite, a soldier, and/or another type of platform. Each respective platform may include all of the hardware required for each platform to independently have complete computational ability without relying on other platforms. Such computing systems may experience hardware redundancies, inefficient networking capabilities, and substantial platform weight, volume, and complexity. Moreover, by requiring each platform to have individual, complete, non-shared computational ability, communication between multiple platforms may lead to the abbreviation of data sets. This may lead to inaccuracy and/or unreliability of information communicated over the network.
Typically, the term ‘distributed computing’ implies that a program is split into parts that run simultaneously on multiple computers communicating over a network. When defined this way, distributed computing may comprise a subset of parallel computing. However, parallel computing generally describes program parts running simultaneously on multiple processors in the same computer. Distributed programs may have to work in different computer environments with network links and unpredictable failures in the network or the computers. This typically only involves the separation of software or algorithms. In other words, there may be distribution of the computer hardware within cyberspace, but individual elements of the computer may still be duplicated at different physical positions. Networking between elements of the computer may be enabled by optical communication through optical fiber. The use of optical fiber implies that no external alignment is necessary. If free-space communications are used to network the elements of the computer, there may need to be additional hardware and controls to assure that the physically separated elements have their communications hardware aligned to allow information to be propagated from one location to another.
The instant disclosure involves the physically dispersed elements of at least one computational system, not merely the dispersal of software or computational function. In this physically dispersed computation, the nature of the interaction between the computers that execute computations is of prime importance. In order to be able to use the widest possible variety of hardware configurations, the communication channel must be controlled well enough to allow for data links to stay connected for finite lengths of time. If not planned properly, a distributed system can decrease the overall reliability of computations if the unavailability of a node can cause disruption of the other nodes. This is why it is important for the distributed system to be able to find the necessary pieces in the network for basic operation. Computation will not work in this distributed environment without the necessary elements. This is likely due to the amount of network communication or synchronization that would be required between nodes. If bandwidth, latency, or communication requirements are too significant, then the benefits of distributed computing may be negated and the performance may be worse than a non-distributed environment.
A network, and a method of network formation and use, is needed which may solve one or more problems of one or more of the conventional networks and/or methods.